On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 12:05:39PM +0100, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> [091101 11:23]:
> > Some problems I find with this list:
>
> I think some of those complaints show a general disagreement about
> what aims Debian has. Are we here to gain for quality or is allowing
> the maximum amount of (free) software the primary goal?
>
> > E: ftp-master: copyright-lists-upstream-authors-with-dh_make-boilerplate
> > [...]
> >
> > This one has been mentioned previously in the thread. Yes, it's a blemish
> > in the package to list "Upstream Author(s)", but the lintian maintainers
> > have correctly marked this as being of "normal" severity. We should not be
> > blocking packages from the archive for such low-severity issues; please drop
> > this check.
>
> I think a suggestion that a bug filed about this should be "normal" and
> rejecting a package targeted at unstable or experimental with this can
> be fully compatible.
> Already having a problem with that in the archive is no problem (and
> there is no reason to stall testing migration because of it). But why
> should we allow a new version of this package uploaded? Even in case of
> an NMU its no effort at all to fix it.
The check is as follows:
if (m,Upstream Author\(s\),) {
tag "copyright-lists-upstream-authors-with-dh_make-boilerplate";
}
This can mean two things:
1. The list of upstream authors is the dh_make boilerplate, i.e.
useless.
2. The string which introduces the list of upstream authors is the same
as the dh_make boilerplate.
As for 1, I think we agree that this is a bug and probably packages
should get rejected if there is no list of upstream authors.
However, I think this is a non-sequitur; just because the maintainer did
not change the string "Upstream author(s)" by removing the paranthesis
(or, worse, wrote it themselves from scratcH) implies in any way that no
list of upstream authors is present.
Rather, lintian should check whether a proper list of upstream authors
is present (dunno, maybe there is even a seperate check for that),
possibly by checking for the actual dh_make boilerplate, namely "put
author's name and email here". I have filed #553469 to this end.
As for 2, I guess this could be considered a stylistic problem, but no
way does it warrant rejecting the package from the archive.
Michael